I've just bought the MOTU 896mk3 Hybrid, which I use with Windows 7 64bits, through USB. I installed the latest drivers.

I bought it for live purpose, but sadly, on the laptop I use for my live sessions, I have to use a buffer of 256 to get about 10ms latency, which is a bit too much for a live setup.

If I set the buffer to a smaller size, I get regular cracks (about one every minute with 128). You could argue that my laptop is to blame, but I also use a M-Audio FastTrack Ultra 8R on the very same setup, and can without problem use a buffer of 128 for a latency of 4-5 ms, or 8ms with a buffer of 256.

I also add that the laptop is quite powerful (2.2Ghz, CoreI7, 12gg ram) and almost none of the CPU power is used for my tests.

I expected something better from a sound card from MOTU, especially regarding the price.

Actually, 10ms doesn't really bother me. What I'm concerned about is that the MOTU doesn't seem to handle CPU as much as the M-Audio, and I'm afraid of the *future* consequences.

For example, everything seems ok with a buffer of 192. Now imagine one of my song one day becomes more CPU intensive. I'll have to use a buffer of 256, which gives me a latency of 12/13 ms.

I really would mind if that soundcard was used on my desktop computer, but it is used as the core of our live setup: our drummer hears the click from an output of the MOTU, and all our instruments (guitars, voice, bass, synth...) are all managed by the very same soundcard (we use virtual amp simulators such as PodFarm). And I'm afraid that such latency *will* be noticed, somehow, by our drummer, and us trying to follow him (plus the latency of our instruments).

On the exact same setup, I can have better latencies with my M-Audio using the same buffer size. I blame the drivers for that (on a side note, the sound card has also problem being recognized... One thing I can't tolerate as a live setup!).

What DAW? If you're monitoring through plugs, I would guess that you'd have the same latency issues regardless of interface. If there are problems with the device being recognized, then other issues may be at work. Did you uninstall the M-Audio drivers - some have had problems with a combination of drivers on a system. There are new drivers available from MOTU also.

I'm using R•••••. Indeed there is the latency of the plugs to take in account, but also the latency of the interface according to the size of its buffers. That's this one I try to minimize as much as possible.

As for the MOTU not being recognized : it IS actually always recognized (I can access the Asio panel), but the software using it can't always make it work. I tested with both Renoise and R•••••, which work beautifully with any other audio interface I use.

When such problem happens with the MOTU, I change the latency, make another try and it sometimes works. And I've installed the latest drivers. There is definitely something weird with these ones. I have no problem with the M-Audio on both my desktop and laptop computers.

I have only looked at R••••• and never really used it, but if I remember correctly it had a fairly complex way to set up buffers - i.e. DAW buffer independent of interface buffer and such. Maybe try playing with those settings if you haven't already or download another free or evaluation copy of another DAW/audio app to see if you have the same issue.